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Hello! If you had a day off for President’s Day, we hope today was a peaceful transition to work. Please send good vibes to Hey while figuring out what to do with his damaged car (it’s a long story). Meanwhile, today’s Black History Month recommendation comes out Henry on “Blues legacies and black feminismby Angela Davis. Let’s dig. – Christine
Table of Contents
The businessroundups.org Top 3
- What happens if something is not secured?: Well, unfortunately for the US Department of Defense, this meant sensitive military emails were leaked, Bag reports.
- “That’s Not a Moon – It’s a Space Station”: Vast makes its first acquisition of Launcher in a move that brings it closer to building artificial gravity space stations in low Earth orbit. Aria has more.
- Success leads to IPO: Car sharing company Lime reported its first profitable year with Rebekah writing that “Lime has figured out how to make shared micromobility a sustainable business.” So what happens when you are good at what you do? The company is now considering an IPO.
Startups and VC
FreshToHome, an Indian meat startup pursuing a slice of the country’s food delivery market, has a new backer in Amazon, which has led a $104 million funding round. Manic writes that this investment is the largest check Amazon’s Smbhav Venture Fund has written to date. Meanwhile, FreshToHome has made a name for itself and expanded its presence by 100% in the past year.
Now there are five more:
5 tactics for managing paid customer acquisition during a recession
Image Credits: relationship (Opens in a new window) /Getty Images
When economic conditions change, companies adapt their marketing tactics: when the pandemic started, junk e-mail volumes fell dramatically. After the vaccines rolled out, the mailboxes were again full of irrelevant offers.
Paid marketing is a core tactic for early-stage startups, but this recession is a good time for founders to revisit customer acquisition strategies, says Brian Rothenberg, an investment partner at early-stage venture capital fund Defy.
“Capital is now more expensive than it has been in years,” he writes in TC+. “Where else can you invest to get higher returns and build a more sustainable competitive advantage?”
Two more from the TC+ team:
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Big Tech Inc.
It was “game on” for hackers today. First, some hackers allegedly stole Activision games and employee data, Lorenzo reports. The company said the breach happened in December and was confirmed by a gaming blog. Stay tuned for more on that. Coinbase also claims that the same hackers who targeted hundreds of other companies, the so-called 0ktapus hackers, stole some of its employees’ information, Carly writes.
In the ongoing conversation about how ChatGPT is taking over the world, Mark Harris weaves for us the web of nonprofits accelerating Sam Altman’s AI vision.
And we have five more for you:
